The 2025-26 financial year ended on 30 June, which means every crypto disposal you made before that date now belongs in your tax return, due 31 October 2026 if you lodge yourself. In Australia, tax doesn't happen when your portfolio goes up. It happens when you dispose of an asset. This guide covers what counts as a disposal, how the capital gains tax (CGT) math works, and how losses and the 50% discount fit in.

This is the companion piece to Acquiring crypto: airdrops, staking, gifts and more, and both sit under our full Australian crypto tax guide. It assumes you're an investor holding crypto as a CGT asset, which is how the ATO treats most people.

What counts as a disposal?

A CGT event happens any time you stop owning a crypto asset. That includes:

• Selling crypto for AUD (or any fiat currency)
• Swapping one crypto for another, including into stablecoins
• Spending crypto on goods or services
• Gifting crypto to someone else

Just as important, these are not disposals:

• Buying crypto with AUD and holding it
• Transferring crypto between your own wallets or exchange accounts
• Watching an unrealised gain (or loss) move around

How the CGT math works

For each disposal:

Capital proceeds (what you received, in AUD at the time) minus cost base (what you paid to acquire the asset, including fees) = capital gain or loss.

A quick example. You buy 0.1 BTC for $6,000 including fees. Eight months later you sell it for $9,000. That's a $3,000 capital gain, taxed at your marginal rate. If you'd held the same parcel for more than 12 months, the 50% discount would apply and only $1,500 would be added to your taxable income.

Crypto-to-crypto swaps are disposals too

This is the one that catches the most people out. Swapping BTC for ETH, aping into a memecoin, or converting profits into USDT are all CGT events, even though no dollars touched your bank account. The asset you gave up is disposed of at its AUD market value at the time of the swap, and the asset you received starts a fresh cost base and a fresh 12-month clock.

We've covered this in depth in Crypto-to-crypto swaps are a CGT event in Australia.

The 50% CGT discount

If you're an individual and you held the asset for more than 12 months before disposing of it, only half the capital gain is taxable. The discount applies parcel by parcel: each acquisition has its own clock, so a disposal can be part-discounted if it draws on parcels with different purchase dates.

Two things to keep in mind:

• The discount is applied after capital losses have been deducted.
• Companies don't get the discount; it's for individuals (and trusts, with different mechanics).

For the timing strategy around 30 June, see The 50% CGT discount on crypto in Australia.

Losses: what they can and can't do

• Capital losses offset capital gains in the same year, from crypto or any other CGT asset like shares.
• Unused losses carry forward indefinitely to future years.
• Losses cannot offset ordinary income like your salary.
• You can choose which gains to apply losses against. Applying them to non-discounted (short-term) gains first means more of your discounted gains keep the 50% treatment.
• A loss only counts once it's realised, meaning you actually disposed of the asset. But be careful: selling purely to capture a loss and immediately buying back is a wash sale, and the ATO has explicitly warned it may deny losses claimed this way.

Quick reference

Where this goes in your tax return

Your net capital gain (total gains, minus losses, minus any discount) goes in the capital gains section of your return in myTax. You don't list every transaction in the return itself, but the ATO's data-matching program means it already knows you've been trading, so the figure needs to be right and the workings need to exist.

How does Summ handle disposals?

Summ identifies every disposal across your exchanges and wallets, values each one in AUD at the time it happened, tracks the cost base and 12-month clock parcel by parcel, applies losses and the discount, and produces an ATO myTax report with the exact figures for your return. Swaps, spends, and gifts are all picked up automatically.

FAQ

Is swapping BTC for ETH really taxable if I never cashed out?
Yes. The ATO treats the swap as a disposal of your BTC at its AUD market value at the time. The gain or loss is realised then, whether or not you ever touch dollars.

Do I pay CGT when I move crypto between my own wallets?
No. Transfers between wallets or accounts you own aren't disposals. Keep records of the transfer, though, so it isn't mistaken for a sale later.

What about crypto I earned rather than bought, like staking rewards?
Earning crypto is an acquisition event with its own rules (usually ordinary income at receipt, then CGT when you later dispose). See our guide to acquiring crypto.

Ready to sort your FY 2025-26 disposals? Generate your crypto tax report free →

This article is general information, not tax advice. For your specific situation, speak to a registered tax agent.